The Frontier Post,
Pakistan
Sanctions on Iran Expose
Hypocrisy of America, Europe
“If indeed non-proliferation is the real intent, the right candidate in the region to act against was not Iran, but Israel.”
EDITORIAL
December 25, 2006
Pakistan - Frontier Post - Home Page (English)
Americans are gloating and Europeans are gleeful. But by coercing
the U.N. Security Council into foisting sanctions onto Iran, what have they
achieved but the exposure of their own hypocrisy?
The Americans should be the last to demand that action be taken against
Iran, after having just days ago passed a law to supply nuclear technology to
India. And unlike Iran, India is a declared nuclear-weapons states which isn't
even a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
And it's not just Tehran that says its nuclear pursuits are motivated
solely by peaceful intents. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said
more than once that it hasn't come across any evidence to prove that Iran is
working on a weapons program. Even the CIA, America’s premier intelligence
agency, admits to possessing no such evidence.
So what is it if not just insinuation and some obscure grand
design that impels the Americans and Europeans to act against Iran? And what
high moral authority do they possess that makes them the champions of
non-proliferation, when their own track record is so skewed and blemished?
The NPT clearly stipulates that the five declared nuclear powers,
namely America, Britain, France Russia and China, would disarm. Instead, both
the Americans and Europeans are sharpening the teeth of their nuclear arsenals.
America, which is the only power that has actually used nuclear
weapons in anger - first in Japan during the Second World War and then in Iraq
during the First Gulf War - is now fabricating nuclear bomblets for actual field
use.
Britain is updating its Trident missile arsenal while France is
adding more lethality to its naval nuclear assets. If indeed non-proliferation is
the real intent, the right candidate in the region to act against is not Iran,
but Israel. This bully of the block is sitting on an undeclared but smoothly
running weapons program. Experts estimate over 200 bombs in the basement, it is
not a signatory to the NPT and it runs its bomb-making factories without any
fear of outside inspection.
The world hangman should have been tasked to hound the Jewish
state after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's recent tacit admission of its nuclear
weapons prowess and nuclear possessions. But that hasn't been
done. It is Iran that remains in the bloodthirsty sights of the American and Europeans.
Western powers contend that the Iranians can't be taken at their
word, because President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad talks of wiping Israel off the map
and denies the Holocaust. But they conveniently forget that long before he came
to power, they had already picked up the stick against Iran's nuclear program;
that the Israelis long ago named Iran as enemy number one; that there are very
many Europeans who deny the Holocaust and that some of their historians have stood
trials and been indicted on this account Watch 
. In any case, the rhetorical
outbursts of President Ahmadinejad cannot be an excuse for hypocrisy and unreasonable
attack. What matters is evidence. And that evidence just isn't there in the
case of Iran's nuclear program.
How U.N. sanctions will damage Iran, only time will tell. But for
the present, what stands exposed as glaringly as the sunlight on a glacier is
the hypocrisy and skullduggery of the Americans and Europeans. Whatever little
credibility was left to their non-proliferation credentials lies buried deep in
the dust. If they want to be taken seriously as champions of non-proliferation,
they'll have to come clean on their own record first. They must stop
refurbishing their own nuclear arsenals – both for reliability and their
destructive force - and start disarming. And if they want the Gulf region to be
free of nuclear weapons, they must first disarm Israel.
They are no doubt aware that according to the IAEA, no less than
30 nations operate nuclear programs they could easily convert over to weapons production.
And among these are Arab states as well. The scarecrow of an Iranian bomb they
are now employing to intimidate neighboring Arab states and line them up
against Tehran could well boomerang against them. Instead of being persuaded,
they might instead get dissuaded and embark on their own programs. Already at
their recent summit, Gulf leaders decided for their nations’ security to take a
deep look at the nuclear option.
So the Americans and Europeans cannot hope to succeed with their Security
Council jiggery-pokery. This course is fraught with unforeseen dangers that
could leave the world more perilous to live in than it already is.
